stockinstore is thrilled to be partnering with Toyworld, the largest specialty toy retailer in Australasia and part of the largest group of independent owner operators in Australia and New Zealand.
Toyworld NZ signed with stockinstore for the company’s 25 New Zealand stores in August, a pilot before rolling out the functionality to their Australian stores. ARL’s (Associated Retailers Ltd) acting CEO Franco Godinich considers this step a key element in his plan to help create more cohesion across stores and online.
Part of my long-term strategy is [working out] how we integrate brick and mortar stores. It’s always harder with a member group or a franchise group to do that, so this is the first step.
Challenges for Franchise Member-based Retailers
Godinich had specific challenges when he went searching for a Find In Store solution. As well as offering insights and opportunities for members to grow their businesses it needed to support the Company’s operating principle of driving foot traffic back into stores while accommodating the fragmented operating system that supports the individual stores.
“The complexity is that all our stores are owner-operated. We don’t have a centralised database system, we don’t have a centralised POS system or ERP system across the group so each store has their individual systems, they have their own individual databases. It’s not like a corporate where everything is centralised, [and] managed in one place and you just plug it in and off you go,” says Godinich.
“What stockinstore gave me was a solution, which didn’t require integration. So that’s a very different solution.”
Making the Complex Simple
The Acting CEO found the Find In Store solution to be surprisingly simple after a difficult few months exploring other options. “[With stockinstore] everything is done externally so you don’t have to mess with your actual web platform. And that’s where the cost or complexity or issues arise and this is where stockinstore solved my problem because I was going to have a lot more moving parts, a lot more cost and a lot more areas of potential failure by going down the route I was going down. And what stockinstore has done, has not only been quick, it’s also been affordable and it’s also been effective without jeopardizing any other functionality in the site,” says Godinich.
The highly experienced retailer says “there can be a danger, when you do any kind of project work and you spend months and months and months going down a particular track. It’s the having the courage to go – “Wow. Ok. This is a light bulb moment” and do you really go and ditch everything I’ve done for the last six months and go with this solution?”
Well, this was a no-brainer.
The Result?
Toyworld NZ franchisee members were shown the powerful new functionality at a recent strategy meeting in Auckland and were all impressed by the solution, it’s analytics and reporting suite. Its insights into customer behaviour, demand on products, Lost Sales Opportunities, Marketing Effectiveness and measures performance – an aspect to the SaaS that Godinich considers “phenomenal”.
Godinich counts his experience with stockinstore to be among the best he has had working on an e-Commerce, digital project.
It was a breath of fresh air to have something that ended up being [exactly what] they said it was going to be and actually delivered on what they said they were going to do, with the costs and timelines. And certainly the experience we had is making us look at our other brands as well.
Find out more about Toyworld NZ and experience the Find In Store solution here: toyworld.co.nz
About stockinstore®
stockinstore was launched in 2016 as a way for retailers to tell online shoppers which stores nearby have the item they’re looking for. Since its launch, this ground-breaking technology has continued to bridge the gap between online and in-store; and gives retailers valuable insights into customer demand for products across their store network. To learn more about stockinstore and join a growing list of retailers like M.J. Bale, Adairs, Sheike, Triumph, Early Settler, PETstock, Kookai, Florsheim, MyHouse, Bevilles, Pillow Talk, Surf Dive n Ski, GUESS, Amazon Surf NZ, 99 Bikes, Intersport, Nique, Billini, The Upside, Bags to Go and Tentword, who are all using stockinstore to improve their retail businesses, visit https://www.stockinstore.com
